After VM Upgrade - Tool, Bars and Shared Folders Gone!

[dlodi]

I upgraded to VM 4 on my Macbook Air, running lastest version of Lion.  The previous verson of VM was perfect.  I had it setup so all of my user account folders are shared between Mac and Windows.  Now, when I log into Windows 7, my shard folders and tool bars are gone.  I get a network error message telling me that  "Windows cannot access \\vmware-host\Shared Folders."  The details for the error message tell me that the "network path is not available."  If I try to diagnose it I it tells me that I do not have permission to access \\vmware-host\Shared Folders.  This is probably something simple but I cannot figure it out.  Any help would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks,

Dave

[ShaddamIV]

You may want to check whether you have any folders shared at all in the Fusion 4 control panel. They should be listed there. If they're not, you'll need to add them to the list.

[dlodi]

Thank you for your reply. My folders are shared.  I cannot create new shared folders either.  It appears to be some kind of a permissions issue.

[ShaddamIV]

can you select any Mac folder in that shared folder control panel and add it to the list of shared folders?

I'm not sure I understand "I cannot create new shared folders either" - you can only select a Mac folder to be shared with the VM.

What happens when you try that and it doesn't work? does the new folder not appear in the list, or does it appear there, but not in the VM?

[dlodi]

Thank you very much for your help.

If I go to the tools menu in VM and open Sharing I can see original shared folder.  If I add Documents as a shared folder, for example, a new shared folder is created in the list, but I see no other signs of it. There is not an icon on my desktop or under my network connections.  If I click on My Computer, under network connections I can see my original shared folder, which appear as a network drive, but it has a red X through it.  If I click on it, it says, "an error occured while reconnecting Z: to \\vmware-host\Shared Folders VMware Shared Folders: The request is not supported.  This connection has not been restored."

As I mentioned earlier, it seems ot be a permission issue as my toobar is also gone.  Its like I'm logged in as a new user on the system.  However, there is only one user setup on the machine and I am logged in as that user.

[drcoffey]

I had exactly the same problem after I upgraded to Fusion 4...not able to access the shared folders.  I did several things and afterwards the problem was resolved.  First, since I had upgraded the virtual machine, I deleted my older snapshots and reclaimed the space on the virtual machine.  I turned off the shared folders.  I then uninstalled the VMware Tools and then reinstalled them.  Then I turned the shared folders back on.  Now, it works as well as it used to.

[dlodi]

Thanks for your reply drcoffee.  Sorry it took me a bit of time to respond.  I do not have an old snapshot so I should be good there.  How did you uninstall VMWare Tools? I kinda suspect this is where my problem lies.  I can see where to reinstall it but not uninstall.  Thanks!

[ShaddamIV · Accepted solution]

You can uninstall the tools using Windows' uninstall feature (control panel > software > uninstall).

Hope this helps. Good luck!

[dlodi]

Thank you guys.  I turned off sharing, uninstalled Tools, then reinstalled Tools, then reestablished sharing and setup new sharing folders.  Back in business. Really appreciate the guidance.